Online Marketing For Your Craft Business – Book review

Want to know where to sell handmade craft online? Not sure if you need spiders? (or where to keep them if you do)? Don’t really know how to use all these social platforms?

Hillary Pullen‘s great book ‘Online Marketing for your Craft Business‘ is a wealth of marketing knowledge. I recently had the pleasure of reviewing this crafters marketing bible, in fact, if anyone’s been looking for me over the last few weeks, I’ve been curled up on the sofa under a blanket with this very book.

A content marketing specialist and craft industry expert, Hillary, has a strong interest in crafts and all things handmade. As well as this book, Hillary writes Craft Blog Grow – Tips for selling craft online, a blog celebrating craft bloggers, full of tips and tutorials to help creatives and craft sellers successfully promote their work.

To WIN a copy of ‘Online Marketing for your Craft Business’ enter at the end of this post

Let’s take a look under the cover of ‘Online Marketing for your Craft Businesses’

Who is this book for?

Do you want to talk to as many targeted people as possible, online?
More specifically, do you have handmade craft ideas or products that you want to successfully sell online?

If you answered yes to the above, then this book is an invaluable resource for you and will load you up with enough ammunition to go from digitally stabbing in the dark to being a savvy content marketing strategist. Whether you need help setting up your first business pages on social media or you want to fill gaps in your already pretty savvy digital marketing knowledge, this book will help you.

What’s in the book?
Hillary’s book works through essential topics such as:

Social networking and whether it’s worth your time. Time management

Creating a cross-channel marketing strategy. How and where to use keywords

How to get your content discovered Identifying your target market

And so much more…

Online Marketing for your Craft Business is set out in an easy to follow and fun style with Interesting top-tip quotes from successful crafters and online business people like Patricia van der Akker and Mr X Stitch.

Whether you choose to read from beginning to end (as I avidly did) or dip in as and when the need arises, it’s certainly a book to keep close at hand, covering everything from defining your customer profile to SEO and Google Analytics.

Hillary works through most of the main social media platforms (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn) explaining what each platform is best used for with in-depth basics of how to use them.

Examples of content calendars are a really handy addition, showing how to keep organised and on-target and there are loads of really handy tips.

To WIN a copy of ‘Online Marketing for your Craft Business’ enter at the end of this post

It’s not necessarily about the number of fans, it’s more about how engaged those fans are with the content you share”

It’s easy for people to get caught up in the idea that likes and follows is the end goal, Hillary explains throughout the book that these goals are only a part of the story and in fact monitoring your ROI will show that engagement with the right audience is far more important.

Of course, Hillary couldn’t possibly cover everything (‘everything’ is a vast and fast-moving beast in the world of social media) so she includes handy tips on where to go for more detailed and up to date information plus there’s a handy glossary and useful links and resources section.

I found Hillary’s in-depth instructions on Google Search really useful, for example being able to search by blog post only or find sites linking to a specific site. Great for improving efficiency, finding a bank of useful blogs to interact with and working out who you might want to collaborate with to create useful back-links to your own blog.

Whilst I would have liked to see some information on topics such as using Facebook groups, expanding blog reach and copyright laws regarding image use, I realise there’s already a heck of a lot covered and, really, where does one stop?!

To WIN a copy of ‘Online Marketing for your Craft Business’ enter at the end of this postIf you follow the advice in Hillary’s book you’ll end up with a streamlined, efficient working system, save yourself time and maximise ROI and like I said earlier, whether you’re social media savvy or just starting out, you’ll find something useful in here to get you well on the way to successfully selling your craft ideas online.

Working with social media, it’s very easy to get lost in a cloud of tasks and forget why you’re doing all this in the first place. Online Marketing for your Craft Business helps to clarify, demystify and keep eyes firmly on the ball of selling your precious handmade crafts.

This is the book for you if you want to hone a ‘craft it yourself’ digital marketing strategy.

WIN a copy of ‘Online Marketing for your Craft Business’

For your chance to win this book answer the following question in the comments box below this post.*Deadline to enter: 1st march 2018 @ 12pm

I have tried a few crafts, my favourite being reupholstering my son’s toy boxes with Marvel themes, but I have just started a Dressmaking course and love it, and feel this is where my crafting travels will take me.

Congratulations Caroline you are the winner! You will receive this really useful craft marketing book, ‘Online marketing for you craft business’ by Hillary Pullen. We will email you now. Best, Kati and the Dannells team 🙂

Hi there I love making my two boys costumes. It started when my son was 3 and he wanted to be a dragon so I made him some dragon wings and they came out so much better than anticipated, so much so that he won a dragon competition in our town to be the best dressed dragon. Since then I have made them hobbit waistcoats and capes, ghost ponchos, Ninja Turtle tshirts and masks and loads more.